


Lost & Found

by Hekate1308



Series: The Crowley Chronicles [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x23 fix-it, Amnesia, Gen, Post-Season 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-17 06:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11845572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: It's one thing, stumbling across Crowley as a homeless man.It's another to realize he has no idea who Dean is.12x23 fix-it, now with second chapter.





	1. Chapter 1

His first thought isn’t even _Oh God_ _or How?_ but _Of course Crowley has to be fancy even as a homeless guy_ , because that is what his life ultimately boils down to. If he freaked out over every weird stuff he’s confronted with, he’d probably have a heart attack within an hour.

So the former king of hell sitting on a park bench and reading Robert Burns’ poems while his belongings are neatly packed away in two Armani backpacks next to him is no big deal.

“I’ll give you that, it’s a good cover” he says, stepping up to him.

No disgruntled demon would look for Crowley out on the streets of all places.

A small part of him feels annoyed that he hasn’t even thought it necessary to let them know he was alive, let alone that he’s back. Sure, they didn’t exactly part as the best of friends, but in his own small way, he even grieved for the guy. And continued to, after they dealt with Satan Jr. and Cas was resurrected once more, grieved through the whole year it took him to find Crowley here on a nondescript park bench in a nondescript park of a nondescript town.

The reaction he gets astounds him. Faster than he can blink, Crowley has put his book away, grabbed his two backpacks and stood up, saying tiredly, “Don’t worry, officer, I’m on my way”.

He waits. Waits to be hailed as “Squirrel” and thoroughly laughed at because of the face he’s certainly making right now, for the self-assure demon he knows to come through, but it doesn’t happen.

Instead, Crowley starts walking away.

“Wait!”

He rushed after him and grabs his biceps.

He flinches.

“Crowley?”

He turns around.

There’s absolutely no recognition in his eyes, and Dean almost can’t hide his shock when he realizes.

_Crowley has no idea who he is._

“I told you, I’m on my way. I have no wish to get into trouble – “

“You’re not in trouble. Crowley, it’s me – Dean Winchester – “

“Crowley? Is that my name?” he asks so innocently Dean has to take a moment to breathe.

“Yes. It is.”

There’s something like hope in his eyes, now.

“You know me?”

“Better than anyone, I’d imagine”.

At least anyone alive right now. He doesn’t mention that detail.

“So we’re... friends?”

 _“Besties, actually”_ that same voice says loud and clearly in Dean’s head, so very confident and at ease, the complete opposite of the – man? standing in front of him.

“Yes. Yes we are. You disappeared a while back. We –“ he stops, realizing Crowley has no idea who “we” are.  

“Me and my brother and our best friend” he finally continues, “we were all worried about you”.

Well, less worried and more... kind of sorry no red-eyed dick was going to drop in anymore to annoy them. They even went so far to tell his story on hunter get-togethers, so that he wouldn’t be entirely forgotten.

How ironic. The only one who has forgotten all about him is Crowley himself.

“Look, I know you have no reason to trust me – “

“That’s quite alright. I haven’t got anything to lose either”.

Well if that’s not freaking depressing.

“So you’ll come with me?” he asks, somewhat astonished at how eager he is to have them all together again. “We’re working a case in this town, so it’s only a motel room for now, but you’re welcome to stay with us if you’d like”.

He hasn’t cleared it with Sam or Cas yet, but I can’t imagine them turning their... somewhat-ally away in his condition.

“Better than on the street” Crowley decides and Dean breathes a sigh of relief.

He sends a quick text to Sam, who’s been visiting the morgue with Cas – _Found Crowley. Ask no questions; he has no idea who he is. Amnesia or something. Just get a bottle of holy water ready._

“You said case... did we work together?” Crowley asks (so freaking _innocently_ ).

“Now and then, yeah” Dean says truthfully.

They did after all hunt Lucifer’s hell hound together... that must count for something, right?

Oh God, he suddenly realizes, Juliet. Damn dog has been hanging around the bunker since a few weeks after Crowley’s death, when she just showed up out of the blue; each of them had an angel blade in hand in turn and couldn’t bring himself to do her in.

She’s going to flip out and Crowley will be thrown down on the floor by an invisible mutt slobbering all over him.

First things first: get him to a motel.

“Can’t be the feds” Crowley said suddenly. “Someone would have come looking for me then”.

He sounds so resigned Dean can’t take it.

“We thought you were dead. That’s why we didn’t search for you. Something... went wrong on a case”.

Crowley actually looks pleased.

Dean doesn’t stop to think whether he would have looked for him, because...

Well, because the answer would probably be an all too enthusiastic “Of course”.

Sam and Cas have readied themselves for the sight that awaits them and don’t even jump when Crowley walks into the motel room in front of Dean.

“Crowley” they say almost at the same time.

“This is my brother Sam, and this is our friend Cas”.

Crowley nods before drawling, “Sorry, boys, no idea who you are”.

That... almost sounds like the old him.

“I’m thirsty. You want some water too?” Dean asks casually.

He nods and he goes to the fridge.

Sam has left two bottles of holy water to cool, and while it’s thrown away on Dean, that’s a prize he’s ready to pay.

“Here” he passes him a bottle, and, as he expected, Crowley waits for him to take a drink before he does the same.

No reaction.

He came back as human as Cas, then.

That settles that.

“Look” he says once they’ve all sat down at the small table, “I know this will sound insane...”

“You have no idea” Crowley mumbles.

“Trust me, I do. Okay, there’s no way to sugarcoat this. I told you we were on a case... a supernatural one. Because almost everything you can think of – ghosts, monsters, et cetera – they’re real. And we hunt them”.

He thought he was prepared for every answer Crowley could think of, but he’s still shocked when he reacts with, “Do some of them have black eyes?”

“Yeah” Sam says, “how do you –“

“I see them from time to time. I try to get away; they attack me when they realize I’m there”.

His expression tells Dean there was more than one close call involved.

“Yeah. Those are demons”.

Again, not a single sign of recognition, not even the smallest suspicion he could ever have been one of them.

“Did they say anything?” Cas asks. “Before they attacked you?”

Crowley shrugs. “They mostly sprouted a lot of nonsense... about taking revenge or stuff like that. Of course this explains it.”

He waves a hand towards all of them.

Right. He thinks they were colleagues.

They could tell him the truth... but frankly, what would be the point? He’s already had it hard enough during the last year, and he did sacrifice himself for them.

Alright, also to get rid of Lucifer, but still.

Neither Sam nor Cas make any attempt to tell him.

Okay then.

And two days later, after they’ve solved the case (Crowley doing a pretty good job of manning the phones in the meantime) they’re on the way back to the bunker, and Dean is surprised just how complete the team feels with the former demon in the backseat.

They’ve warned him about Juliet (he seems to think she’s just their team’s pet) so he reacts pretty well when she jumps at him, barking excitedly.

“Guess she missed you” Dean says calmly.

And then they have Crowley living with them, and the goddamn guy seems so freaking comfortable.

It’s annoying Dean to no end because, if anything, he finally wants his make-shift family to be honest with one another, but how can they be when the truth would probably freak him so badly he might not recover?

What’s frustrating him the most is how _obvious_ it must all seem to Crowley. They recognized him and took him in immediately, so they _must_ be his pals, right? And because he’s been around since the First Apocalypse that never was, all their stories make it seem like he hung out with them _all the time_ , and because they were on cases then, cases they can’t help but mention, and he’s got pretty good fighting skills, he _must_ be a hunter in his mind.

See? Freaking obvious.

Naturally the thought of being anything else but human never occurred to him. Why would it?

There are a few things they have to tell him, though; he takes the news of his mother’s and son’s death pretty well, probably because why he understands what it means, there is no single remembrance he can connect with either of them.

Instead, it can be said that he grows more and more attached to them all, in exactly the way it happens when you become friends with someone.

And goddamn it – they like him to, alright?

The last thing Dean would have imagined, from his brief problem with human blood, would have been that Crowley could end up not only a decent man, but a pretty good one.

He’s just – he’s nice and kind and friendly _all the time_ , exactly what you’d expect from a homeless guy who suddenly finds himself surrounded by friends with a room of his own.

Even Jody has to admit that, and he almost killed her some years ago.

As soon as she hears Crowley’s back, she comes rushing, only to stand absolutely still and stare at the ex-king of hell who’s leaving it up to her whether she wants tea or coffee, and oh, would she like something to eat with that? He’s sure he can scrounge up something for her –

“Oh God” she mumbles after he disappears into the kitchen, “how do you deal with those puppy dog eyes?”

“I’m in training, think of Sam”.

“Is he like that all the time?”

“Yep. Best roommate I ever had. And I’m living with an actual used-to-be-an-angel these days”.

“And he has no idea?”

“None. And to be honest, none of us can bring themselves to tell him. He’s so freaking happy here, Jody”.

“I can see that”.

She sighs.

“Alright then, looks like your “Team Free Will” got another member”.

It does indeed. Crowley is a pretty good fighter, and some of that demon knowledge he had must still be flying around in his head, because he finds lore incredibly quickly.

So, yeah, things are... good.

For a while.

Until... Dean can’t really explain it, but he knows Crowley isn’t happy anymore. He’s always slinking around in the shadows, suddenly, and Dean could swear he hears him walking around at night when before he had no trouble sleeping through.

One night, Dean has enough and catches him just as he’s about to go to the library.

And if those are not the eyes of a haunted man, Dean has never looked into a mirror.

“You remember”.

It’s not a question.

Crowley nods.

“A few weeks now”.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You want to know the truth, Squirrel?” he asks tiredly.

 “Because the past you allowed me to believe in was far more pleasant”.

“It was, wasn’t it.”

Juliet comes up to them, invisible to every inhabitant of the bunker now.

“You wouldn’t have your doggie then, though”.

Crowley actually chuckles.

“I guess”.

After a pause, he asks, “Do you want me to leave?”

“No”.

He can say that with conviction. None of them would feel comfortable, just sending their – friend out into the world.

Crowley nods.

“You’ll still bake pies, right?” Dean asks hopefully. It’s one of the talents he definitely didn’t expect Crowley to have.

He groans.

“Fine, Squirrel, but only if you make burgers.”

“I can do that. Now, come on; we both need a night cap”.


	2. Crowley's POV

He wakes up in Lawrence, Kansas.

Only he doesn’t know it yet.

In fact, he knows nothing, save that it’s night and he’s cold and hungry and uncomfortable.

Even the discovery that he can’t recall his own name comes second to the need for food.

He gets up, dizzy and disoriented.

To his surprise, he’s wearing a suit that must have been expensive, but has definitely seen better days. He’s dirty all over.

No one else is around. He’s all alone in the park he just woke up in.

Judging from the trees, it must be spring, but it’s still too cold for him; he shivers.

_Human. I’m human._

He shakes his head, wondering where that thought came from. Of course he’s human. What else could he possibly be? A ghost?

 Alright, it’s an amusing theory, but he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be cold then.

He stumbles along, eventually finding a street as abandoned as the park was.

Finally he makes it to a gas station. At least he can clean himself up a little there.

To his relief, he finds a few bills in his pocket. He’s not affluent by any means (and for some reason he’s not carrying a wallet) but he can at least get something to eat and drink.

The cashier eyes him wearily, but he doubts he’d be in any condition to rob the place, even if he wanted to.

Her gaze softens as he tries to pay with a few rumpled bills.

“Keep it. It’s only a bit of water and two sandwiches anyway.”

“Thank you” he says honestly.

He learns soon enough that he’ll not often be met with kindness.

 He has no name, no money and no home.

He could go to the police, but something keeps him from it.

Maybe it’s the fact that he woke up freezing in a park in a suit that a mafia boss might wear without looking too shabby, or that no one in Lawrence was looking for him.

Or maybe it’s the dreams.

He doesn’t understand them. He only knows that most times he manages to fall asleep, he sees blood and hears screams, and then he’s burning.

The only thing that scares him more are the thoughts that sometimes pop in his head.

Like that night he sees an old man walking down a dark street.

_Could cut his throat from behind and get away with his wallet, no one would know._

Or when he meets a woman at a crossroads and their eyes meet briefly.

_Wonder what she’d ask for if she sold me her soul._

None of it makes sense.

And so, he slowly makes his way through America’s streets without any help.

About a month into his “posthumous existence” as he’s come to call it, he learns there are more dangers out there than just hunger and cold.

He’s trying to go to sleep on yet another park bench when someone hisses “Oh how the mighty have fallen”.

He’s up in an instant, staring at the woman who’s grinning at him, and even in the pale light from a street lamp not too far away, he can see that her eyes are completely black.

“Well well well Great One... Life hasn’t treated you well lately, has it? Don’t worry; it ends tonight”.

Only the reflexes he doesn’t think too much about because he’s worried he wouldn’t like the answer to that particular question save him as he launches at him.

The next few weeks, he wonders if he only hallucinated all of that. After all, quite a high percentage of homeless people do suffer from some kind of mental illness.

But then more black-eyed people show up.

And none of them are particularly friendly to him.

After a few more close calls, he learns to avoid them.

Thank God he’s pretty clever.

Life goes on, although he’s not sure he can call what he’s doing “living”.

He ponders the past now and then, but with the dreams he has... He’s not so sure he wants to know.

At least until he meets Dean.

It’s quite warm outside, thankfully, and he’s reading on a bench when someone says, “I’ll give you that, it’s a good cover”.

Crowley looks up warily, expecting another fight with one of the black-eyed people, but instead a man in a suit is standing in front of him.

By now, he’s got more than enough experience to recognize law enforcement a mile away, and he scrambles to get up.

“Don’t worry, officer, I’m on my way”.

Without looking at him again, he starts walking away.

“Wait!”

He walks faster; the last thing he needs is a night behind bars. He tried it once on a very cold winter’s night, to get arrested to avoid freezing to death. The cell made his nightmares worse.

The guy grabs his arm, and he reluctantly turns around.

“I told you, I’m on my way. I have no wish to get into trouble – “

Another of these thoughts he never can get quite rid off darts into his mind.

Squirrel’s looking good, as usual.

What the –

 “You’re not in trouble. Crowley, it’s me – Dean Winchester – “

His heart starts beating faster.

This man knows who he is.

“Crowley? Is that my name?” he asks.

The – Dean looks shocked.

“Yes. It is.”

 “You know me?”

All the answers he’s been scared to ask for could be standing in front of him.

“Better than anyone, I’d imagine”.

Good God.

 “So we’re... friends?”

_What if he’s just used to arresting me on a regular basis?_

 “Yes. Yes we are” he says, and – Crowely breathes a sigh of relief.

“You disappeared a while back. We –“ he stops, realizing Crowley has no idea who “we” are.  

“Me and my brother and our best friend” he finally continues, “we were all worried about you”.

Someone was worried about him.

Someone _cares_ for him.

It could all be a trick, but what has he got to lose? A miserable, homeless existence, with no one caring whether he’s swiped off the face of the earth or not.

 “Look, I know you have no reason to trust me – “

“That’s quite alright. I haven’t got anything to lose either”.

 “So you’ll come with me?” Dean asks eagerly, as if he can’t wait for him to meet his brother and their friend.

After a year of constantly being shown the door, it feels good to be wanted.

“We’re working a case in this town, so it’s only a motel room for now, but you’re welcome to stay with us if you’d like”.

 “Better than on the street” he answers, wondering what kind of case Dean’s talking about. Are they some sort of private detectives by any chance?

 “You said case... did we work together?” Crowley asks once Dean is done texting, presumably telling the others he stumbled across him.  

“Now and then, yeah” Dean answers.

“Can’t be the feds” he decides. “Someone would have come looking for me then”.

Throughout the past year, it has been both his biggest fear and greatest hope that someone would eventually be searching for him.

 “We thought you were dead. That’s why we didn’t search for you. Something... went wrong on a case” Dean explains.

It’s by no means the most logical explanation, but he’ll take what he can get. For now it sounds like he’s one of the good guys, and that’s quite enough for him after the year he’s had.

True, he has no proof yet that they are actually decent human beings, but he can’t believe Dean’s a bad guy. There’s just something _good_ about him. He can’t really explain it.

The tall man and the man with the incredibly blue eyes that await them in the motel room don’t look familiar at all, but he’s used to that feeling.

Dean’s eager to get him something to drink, and the thought that he might be drugged occurs to him; but frankly, why should he care? It’s either staying with them or going back on the streets.

And it turns out to simply be a bottle of water anyway.

_Strange when it doesn’t burn._

He ignores his strange inner voice.

As it turns out, the truth is even weirder than anything he could have come up with.

The black-eyed people who’ve been after him for a year? Apparently they are demons. Great.

And the Winchesters and he... they hunt them and other supernatural creatures.

Not exactly a career option he would have considered, but it’s something to know he’s been about doing good deeds.

And the boys are happy to take him home with them, no questions asked.

He won’t lie, there’s something comforting about having friends.

They’ve told him about the hell hound (invisible dogs, who would have thought) they adopted a while back. Strange choice if you ask him, but then he can’t remember the circumstances.

The dog – Juliet, Dean said – is all over him the second he steps foot into the bunker (another nice little detail, apparently owning a house would not be edgy enough for hunters).

_God, she’s grown so much._

He shakes his head as he pets her.

“She’s pretty tame for a hell hound” he says, frowning as she slobbers all over the clothes the boys have lent him.

“Well-trained, I’d say” Dean agrees.

“And rather happy to see me, I think”.

Dean only nods.

Juliet follows him around the rest of the day, always barking excitingly when he bestows attention on her.

He’s given an empty room, which only makes sense; if they considered him dead, they probably got rid of his things.

He ignores the alarm bell that starts ringing in his head because who would really throw away all mementoes of a fallen friend?

Thing is, he’s had nothing for so long, he wants to have _something_.

And here, he does.

And it’s even something good, for once.

He likes the bunker, he likes his room, and in the ensuing weeks, he comes to like the boys and Juliet tremendously.

True, Sam seems a bit wary of him at times (he supposes coming back from the dead can have that effect) and Cas is prone to study him with confusion, head tilted to the side. Dean, though, seems happy to have him back.

It takes a while for them to take him with them on hunts. He can’t blame then. While he is remarkably fast when doing research, any training he might have received once is long forgotten, as are the mother and son they tell him about, one night.

He is sad, but he can’t grieve. Not really. He’s sad he doesn’t remember them, not sorry for their loss.

If there wasn’t this old dread he knows so well, he’d wish he had his memories back.

Around this time, something strange happens.

He wakes up thirsty in the middle of the night and goes to the bathroom to get a glass of water.

In the dim light, his eyes look as red in the mirror as the blood he keeps dreaming about.

He all but flees.

Once they trust his skills enough – he really does have remarkably fast reflexes – their old team is back together on hunts. They develop a routine, and Crowley slowly meets other former acquaintances, like the friendly sheriff who’s so shocked at his reappearance she stares at him for almost five minutes.

He should have realized that things going well is a sure sign of something being wrong.

One night, his dreams are not ineligible anymore.

There are screams, there is blood, there is pain, and for once, there’s no question that he’s the one inflicting all of it, and thoroughly enjoying himself.

And the boys are there, too.

_“Flee or die” he gleefully tells Feathers. How the tables have turned._

_“No one hates you more than you do. Believe me, I’ve tried”. Oh, and how he has._

_He’s standing in front of Sam, contemplating snapping his neck, giddy with power._

He wakes up in a sweat, heart racing, remembering it all.

Juliet is whimpering at the end of his bed.

He knows what she looks like, now.

More importantly, he knows who he is.

And to think he dared to believe it might be one of the good guys after all.

The boys must have laughed forever about that.

Why did they ever take him in? There’s a good chance, if he were Dean, that he’d have taken him with him in order to finally make him disappear of the face of the earth.

Maybe they were just biding their time, waiting for him to remember. The Winchesters are exactly the type to allow him to defend himself before...

Defend himself. How quaint.

It’s a human instinct, defending oneself.

As a demon, he never felt bad for the things he’d done. He was supposed to be evil, and he delighted in it.

Of course the guilt’s crushing him down, now.

Over the next few weeks, he’s barely able to sleep. Juliet, sensing his agitation, takes to following him around at night when he tries to flee the memories of the things he’s done, whimpering at his side.

He’s only waiting for the boys to find out.

One of them is bound to figure out the truth.

He’s not surprised that ultimately it’s Dean who confronts him one night, Juliet for once nowhere to be heard.

“You remember”.

It’s not a question.

Crowley nods.

“A few weeks now”.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You want to know the truth, Squirrel?” he asks tiredly.

 “Because the past you allowed me to believe in was far more pleasant”.

“It was, wasn’t it.”

It really was. Crowley, a hero for once instead of a pathetic drunken tailor who turned into a demon.

Dean makes a quip about Juliet and he can’t help but chuckle.

He might be on his own again very soon, after all. He’d never force Juliet out on the streets with him. She’s got a good home here.

“Do you want me to leave?”

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting; there are strong arguments for both sides; but it surprises him how quickly Dean is to say “No” – and without any indication that his stay is limited, too.

“You’ll still bake pies, right?” Dean asks hopefully.

He groans.

_I basically turned into their housewife._

“Fine, Squirrel, but only if you make burgers.”

“I can do that. Now, come on; we both need a night cap”.

Over their drink, Dean asks, “Do you have any idea who brought you back and why you had amnesia?”

“None.”

He might have suspected Chuck had something to do with it, if he wasn’t off on his tour of the universe with his sister.

“Maybe it was a test” Dean supplies.

“What was it supposed to achieve then? I hardly assume the universe thought it adamant I learn to bake you pies.”

He laughs.

“Hate to admit it, but I kind of missed your sense of humour”.

He clears his throat to hide he’s somewhat touched.

“No, I meant maybe... someone wanted to see what you’d do, human and with a clean slate. And I have to admit... you didn’t do bad at all. You’re actually... decent”.

“Thank you for the evident surprise in your voice”.

They both know he doesn’t mind.

Dean raises his glass.

“Here’s to new beginnings?”

It is, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> I will be saving this demon forever if I have to.


End file.
